Normally telnet will allow you to type in a description which is 256 characters long. This often isnt long enough. Some client programs (such as MuckClient) will allow you to type in more, however, the game itself will not remember more than 512 characters for the description. While that is quite a lot, sometimes, it's just not enough. Especially if you wish to use MPI (more later) as well.
The answer to this, is lists. Which is partly MPI based, but its the simplest form of MPI that you will ever use. In fact because of its simplicity most people do not even realise that they are using MPI at all.
A little explanation as to why we need to use a list. This is easy to explain, quite simply it is back to see restriction imposed by Telnet and the game of the short length of lines. Therefore, if you wish to make something which is longer you need to combine a lot of short ones. Normally your description is held in a single property. This property can be extended by using MPI call a list of instructions which is held somewhere else. To make a list, there is a command called "lsedit" -help for this can be found within the game itself, but an example is given below.
lsedit me=redesc
This command tells the gameto create a list on you called "redesc". This command takes you into an editor. There is held within the editor that you may use, it even comes with reminding instructions when you start it. This is what you should expect to see:
< Welcome to the list editor. You can get help by entering '.h' >
< '.end' will exit and save the list. '.abort' will abort any changes. >
< To save changes to the list, and continue editing, use '.save' >
< Insert at line 1>
You may now enter your description, while you are still restricted to the line length you may use as many lines as you like. If your description is more than 20 lines long at 80 characters wide then you run the risk that people will not be able to read the beginning of your description. As Telnet users will find that it roles off the top of the screen, and by default telnet does not have a scrollback facility. Therefore, it is recommended you do try and keep your description to around 15 lines at 80 characters wide. If this is not enough, you could increase your description by incorporating descriptions of parts of things that you carry, where or have by creating objects and describing them so that people may view them separately.
Now you have created a list, the muck needs to be told to run this list as your description. This can be done with the following command:
@desc me={lexec:redesc}
This command tells the game to run the list called "redesc" when people try and look at you. By using this command if you changed the list to include MPI commands it would use them. There is one other MPI command you may want to use, that is {nl} this MPI command performs a form feed, or new line. Such as if the list contained "line 1{nl}line 2" you would see on the map screen is your description the following:
line 1
line 2
You can use this technique on any object, such as a room, object, exit or person They are few more rules for MPI, however at this stage I am not going into them. But give you a hint, it again goes with the line lengths.